Producer Hiram Garcia has teased the origins for Atom Smasher and Cyclone in the upcoming Black Adam movie. Dwayne Johnson's turn as the eponymous ancient Egyptian anti-hero has been long anticipated in the DCEU. The former WWE superstar has been attached to play the role for over a decade, although he was supposed to appear as a villain in David F. Sandberg's Shazam! movie initially, as well as in an earlier version of The Suicide Squad. WB and DC Films, however, ultimately spun Johnson's character off into his own film.
After being moved around several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Adam is due to arrive in theaters on July 29, 2022. Right now, plot details on the movie are slim, but per the first Black Adam footage from DC FanDome, the upcoming blockbuster will see Johnson's Kahndaq warrior unleash his wrath in the modern world after being set free from imprisonment. Some other notable DC superheroes will also factor into the movie. Together, they will comprise the Justice Society of America (JSA), a superpowered team that seeks to fight for justice and truth. In Black Adam, the JSA's veteran members include Aldis Hodge as Hawkman and Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate. Meanwhile, actors Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell are playing its younger members, Atom Smasher and Cyclone.
Now, in a new interview with The Illuminerdi, Black Adam producer Hiram Garcia has opened up about how Swindell and Centineo's superheroes will be incorporated into the movie and the JSA. He said that in Black Adam, Cyclone and Atom Smasher will have complex backstories of their own, and those will influence how the characters' arcs play out in the movie. But the characters' intriguing pasts aren't the only thing their storylines are going to revolve around - Black Adam will also chart new journeys for the young superheroes, which will be spirited and humorous. Read what he said below.
“I think what’s fun about both those characters, and Noah and Quintessa both do a great job with it, is both those characters, even though they’re the young members of the team and essentially the youth of the organization, they have complex flash past as well. That’s the beauty, I think, of all the characters we have in this film, is that no one is coming from a cookie-cutter pass.
They all have complex stories to tell that do affect their performances in terms of how those characters function. But I think both of them do a really good job while still carrying a weight of complex past, they’re definitely the bright eyes in the group and they provide the fun and the humor.”
While Cyclone and Atom Smasher are younger and lesser-known characters in the DC lore, Garcia is confident about establishing them in the upcoming movie. In fact, he is in awe of Swindell and Centineo's stunning and joyful performances and he appreciates the actors for really bringing their characters to life. As Garcia mentions, Cyclone and Atom Smasher aren't just connected because they are both younger members of the JSA - the two are coming from the same place, where there is a lot that they have each experienced, and they are both also attached to certain relatives who tend to share in their super-strengths.
As DC aficionados may know, Maxine Hunkel/Cyclone is the granddaughter of Red Tornado, whereas Albert Rothstein/Atom Smasher is the godson of The Golden Age Atom. Since both the characters are legacy superheroes, it's inevitable that Black Adam will touch upon their pasts to help draw the characters out of their ancestors' shadows. The same idea has been teased by Garcia as well, and this proves that Black Adam will basically serve as sort of an origin story for Atom Smasher and Cyclone. Given Garcia's statements, it's also possible that Red Tornado and Atom may show up in the movie, but that is just speculation until the filmmakers confirm the news.
Source: The Illuminderi
